


degausser

by undeliveredtruth



Series: distance [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Chaebol au, Doyoung-centric, Essentially Doyoung’s POV, I won’t lie, M/M, Please read the first part first for it to make sense, Rough Sex, mentions of drug use, pain and angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:28:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29368521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undeliveredtruth/pseuds/undeliveredtruth
Summary: Taeyong was free—free from the life he lived, his parents, the rope tied tight around him keeping him in place.And under the surface, somewhere he didn’t even want to entertain, a simple syllable snuck and curled around Doyoung’s thoughts with terrifying consequences:mine.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong
Series: distance [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2157312
Comments: 15
Kudos: 81





	degausser

**Author's Note:**

> Well... I debated a lot whether to post this or not, but I decided to. So... happy reading? Hope you enjoy it!

Four words and a sigh.

_I want a divorce._

Doyoung thought he would be the one to say them. 

That was the plan all along, at least. When Doyoung first heard from his personal assistant about the scandal that would soon come to befall the Lees, Doyoung felt an unspoken draw to intervene, a tug at his heart which had laid dormant for too long of a time.

For years, maybe even longer. Since he was 14 years old and completely, absolutely, head-over-heels smitten for his best friend. Knew he couldn’t, of course, there was no world in which his parents would let him date Taeyong as his family was much more powerful and his parents couldn’t afford to lose their precious son to a potential threat like Taeyong. Especially after his brother had rebelled and decided to pursue acting. 

Doyoung was never under any impression that his life would stray from the path his parents designed for him except for the little give they offered, the opportunity to even befriend someone like Taeyong in the first place. 

So Doyoung made his peace with the fact that whatever might have been between them would never happen. Became content with admiring Taeyong from afar, being the unnoticeable air under his wings and whispering prayers to gods he didn’t believe in every Sunday in church for Taeyong. Just in case it worked. Just in case one day, Taeyong could do what only their weighty glances said between them—words never spoken in fear the walls had ears, yet said in gestures, lidded eyes, and simple touches.

 _Get away._

Lord knows Taeyong needed it more than him. Doyoung would—could—also never say that because that’s just not the kind of person he was raised to be and Taeyong was not the kind of person who would ever _say it._ But he knew. He knew. That Taeyong’s parents... he knew. 

Always knew. 

Yet, he stayed quiet, because what was he to do? Watched as Taeyong threw himself deeper into the pit of hell, dove headfirst and let the fire lick at his skin, turning himself into someone who Doyoung, just a year younger, couldn’t recognize anymore. Watched, and as years went by and Taeyong distanced himself from him, understood. That’s how it was to be in their worlds.

And then, so much time later it felt like no time had passed… it crumbled. 

_Taeyong was free._

Shamefully, that was the first thought in Doyoung’s mind. _Taeyong was free_ —from the life he lived, his parents, the rope tied tight around him keeping him in place. And under the surface, somewhere he didn’t even want to entertain, a simple syllable snuck and curled around Doyoung’s thoughts with terrifying consequences: _mine._

Twelve years after he truly _saw_ Taeyong for the last time, Doyoung made sure he was where he needed to be on the night he needed to be there, metaphorically catching the man he had been in love with his entire life in his arms. Could ignore, for once, who he was and who he was supposed to be because when Taeyong fell to his knees in front of him, he found his assured touches and confidence turning to dust. When Taeyong took his hand and put it in his hair, Doyoung prayed it wouldn’t tremble, hesitating and disbelieving that this was something he was allowed to live.

Just looking into Taeyong’s eyes after made Doyoung’s knees crumble, once again nothing but a child deeply in love with someone he could never have. 

Never to be fooled into thinking he could.

With Taeyong, it didn’t matter who Doyoung was outside. Never mind that at work, Doyoung signed his name on papers that ruined thousands of lives in moments, that every shred of morals Doyoung might’ve once had shredded into little pieces the more he stepped in, the more he waited. At some point, he even thought he _wanted_ it—found his place in this life with all it entailed, whisked away by the power trip and the exciting weight on his shoulders making him feel like for once, he mattered. 

Yet, every single time he did, without fail, 15-year-old Taeyong’s lidded eyes appeared in front of him, a hand wrapped around his bruised torso shielding him from Doyoung’s questioning gaze with that untethered fire burning in his eyes, shaking his head not to tell him anything, and he thought… 

_Get away._

_But not without him._

Every day, Doyoung dug himself a deeper hole but fought even harder to crawl right back to the surface. With Taeyong at home waiting for him day after day, an overwhelming shine bright even under dirt and dust and hate piled upon him, Doyoung now found it easier to pull himself up and dig deeper at those layers that surrounded Taeyong in turn, trying to get him back to who he once was. 

He found it easier to discover some sort of meaning to his life too, a newfound hope shining like a beacon past the dark future that he got used to living in. He didn’t know what it was, but Taeyong simply being Taeyong gave Doyoung _hope._ He could do this—with Taeyong at his side, he could become a winner and he could turn his life and his work into something that stood more by his morals and his beliefs, goals, and dreams for the future of their country and his life all along. 

With Taeyong at his side, Doyoung could endure anything life threw at him.

Ultimately, Doyoung was always defenseless to everything Taeyong was. All the impenetrable walls he spent years building crumbled with one single metaphorical caress of Taeyong’s finger—so when Doyoung finally had _Taeyong_ in _his_ bed, kissing _him,_ home for _him,_ just for Doyoung?

He knew it could never be true. The Taeyong he knew would have never given up his life to be this for Doyoung if he had a choice. 

_Get away._

Taeyong hadn’t given up his life for his deepest desire—why would he give it up for Doyoung?

The knowledge was a bucket of cold water thrown over his head. So Doyoung made peace with the knowledge that to Taeyong he was someone who was in the right place at the right time and all his attachment was a complicated misdirection of what Doyoung could do for him. Taeyong never loved him—it would be foolish for Doyoung to believe otherwise. 

Make no mistake—he wasn’t blind to Taeyong’s desperate push to Doyoung, his attempts to get him to crumble. However, he was just as aware of how they were never about him but about Taeyong’s desire for control, owning something when all else was lost for him. Doyoung just happened to be that something who was there when nothing else was, the only one who cared for Taeyong. 

Of course it hurt. It _fucking_ hurt, it stabbed him so fucking _deep_ every time Taeyong reached out, and begged, and Doyoung held back with trembling hands and trembling lips, not, never, never taking more than he should have because he had already taken too much and Taeyong never really wanted to give in the first place. There was nothing Doyoung hated more than thinking Taeyong felt like he _owed_ him. 

So he never took. Was comfortable giving, handing himself to Taeyong, handing his company to Taeyong, handing his trust and his house and his bed—his heart Taeyong had since they were children anyway, so it was all too easy to completely surrender himself while never asking for anything in return.

Once though, once. Once, Taeyong’s name had come up in a meeting when it shouldn’t have, with the daughter of a chaebol who had maybe once slept with Taeyong—he couldn’t honestly remember—and then dragged his name through the mud, speaking it in a disgusted tone that left Doyoung shuddering. But he couldn’t do anything because he _needed_ this deal, so instead he rolled up a $100 dollar bill and set another line with the black credit card on the table and turned his cheek when she tried to kiss him with no one else in the room and fisted his hands with a chorus of _Taeyong Taeyong Taeyong_ running laps in his head and took another line because maybe it would go away…

It didn’t. Doyoung woke up with Taeyong’s voice ringing in his ears, scratching more than ever at places that were suddenly laid too bare. Then, Doyoung didn’t have the self-control to hold back—couldn’t look at Taeyong without a raging noise in his ears building and building until he didn’t even know what he said.

But he heard. 

_…risk me…_

And broke. For once, he _took,_ left on Taeyong all the marks he selfishly always wanted to leave, pushed and pushed at him until there was nowhere left to push but for Taeyong to swallow Doyoung whole; he wanted to make Taeyong feel as much of the pain that Taeyong put in him, he wanted to rip into him and make his own fucking space in Taeyong in the same way that Taeyong owned all of himself for all that Doyoung knew of his fucking life. But he could never say that, not in words at least, not in anything but a tight grip and teeth dug into skin and bruises on hips...

He just knew he wanted Taeyong to _hurt._

So he hurt him, fucked him within an inch of his life and truly relished in the dirty satisfaction at seeing Taeyong splayed out on the floor after, unable to move, Doyoung’s come dripping out of him.

_His._

In that moment, Taeyong had all that he wanted and Doyoung hurt him like he never wanted to. (Only ached to, deep inside.)

He wanted Taeyong—yes, sure he did and he could admit that in that moment he just _wanted,_ wanted his marks on him and for Taeyong to remember him, and even... even spilled his biggest secret, knowing what it meant but maybe, just _maybe,_ hoping Taeyong would understand.

That he’d know the things Doyoung could never say.

Taeyong didn’t. 

Doyoung gave him more, like always, certified him as part of his company, helped him clear his name, and with every day, he forced himself to delay the inevitable. 

Now that Taeyong was back to his old self, that he didn’t have to depend on Doyoung anymore, Doyoung hoped that _maybe…_ he wouldn’t have to say those four words he had planned all along. Maybe they could start again, on the right foot this time, as two equals choosing each other without anything else as an obstacle between them.

So he hoped and hoped and kept hoping, and waited more and more and more and let the little seeds of hope grow and bloom into flowers in his heart when he came back every day and found Taeyong where he had always been since their marriage started. Maybe Taeyong was ready.

Taeyong wasn’t. Doyoung didn’t expect his heart would be broken because the few flowers that bloomed were ultimately just spots of red in an already-existing maze of thorns, and he had expected them to be cut from when he found them for the first time. You couldn’t break something that didn’t really exist in the first place—so Doyoung watched as Taeyong signed another set of papers, put his own signature on the right, and once again…

_Taeyong was free._

“Boss?” 

“Mhm?”

“I thought you’d… want to know,” Jungwoo puts the article in front of him. 

_Lee Taeyong, CEO of TY Corp, announces engagement to Jung Jaehyun, son of House Speaker_ _Jung Beomi_. _The engagement comes at a great time for Jung, who’s set to run as the next..._

Doyoung loves Taeyong. Once, he almost fooled himself into thinking that love might have grown into something larger, reciprocated, _theirs._ However, the more they drift away, the more that love buries itself in the familiar, comfortable spot it has taken for most of his life, spreading and stretching as the foundation of who Doyoung is. 

But that’s okay—he likes it more like that.

Because Doyoung doesn’t know how to live a life where he loves something he can have anyway. 

So, he takes out a meager sum of money from his bank account, sells his apartment, packs his bags, and finally gets away. 

Without Taeyong.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find me on [twt](https://twitter.com/bbysvts) and [cc](https://curiouscat.me/bbysvts)! If you enjoyed it, I would appreciate your thoughts. :) <3


End file.
